SOUND BITES

If you're looking for the perfect entry point in Pearl Jam's discography, it's hard not to gravitate toward Vitalogy since it's probably the most varied of the group's ten albums to date. If you're fond of their hard edged, punk-fed side, it doesn't get much more incendiary than Spin The Black Circle . As far as the band's anthems go, they don't hit much harder than Corduroy ; there's a reason it's been played at over five hundred of their shows over the years. If you're only after the endorphin rush that comes from their most massive of songs, it's difficult to top Better Man in that regard. Throw in some emotional turmoil ( Nothingman , Immortality ), a standoffish tantrum or three ( Not For You , Whipping , Satan's Bed ), and the absolute strangest moments they've ever put to tape ( Bugs , Stupid Mop ), and Vitalogy is an album that pushes just about every button. Vitalogy is, above all else, an album full of ...

Back in the spring, when I reviewed Manchester Orchestra's fourth album Cope , I lauded the band for maintaining some of their emotional weight even while focused on making the hardest, loudest record they could; even at its ugliest the quality of Andy Hull's songwriting, as it turns out, trumps whatever else the songs may have in mind stylistically. If listening to Cope doesn't bring that into sharp focus, enter Hope ; comprised of quieter, more acoustic based versions of the songs on Cope , Hope attempts to be the yin to its yang, soothing where the former screamed. At the very least, it's interesting to hear the guitars stripped back, but much of Hope finds the band running too far in the opposite direction. If you couldn't get past the slashing, violent guitars of lead single Top Notch , on Hope they've been reduced to a palm-muted whisper, leaving the growling and screaming of the former version to the piano. Girl Harbor 's explosive chorus, once thr...

For their fifth album, following three and a half years after their last and first since the tragic loss of original member Gerard Smith to cancer, TV On The Radio are intent on not dwelling in the doldrums for too long. Themes of loss are present throughout Seeds , but they're tempered with love and hope; it's laid bare from the get-go in Tunde Adebimpe's first words on opener Quartz ("How much do I love you? How hard must we try to set into motion a love divine?"). There it is again in the sultry, multilingual stunner Careful You and it's simple-yet-soaring chorus ("I will care for you / oh, careful you"). For every expression of sadness and heartbreak, there's a rallying cry; admissions of hurt are countered by calls for resiliency and a challenge issued to walk proudly with open hearts and minds. Perhaps intentionally, the album's most downtrodden lyric accompanies its brightest, most thrilling song; Happy Idiot bounces along on a syn...

Having been responsible for not just back-to-back great records, but two of the past decade's absolute finest metal records (2007's The Blackening and 2011's Unto The Locust ), it's not likely that many suspected Machine Head to maintain the same level of quality on their seventh album. It also probably doesn't help that, in recent months, band leader Robb Flynn has made more headlines as a result of juvenile internet pissing matches than his band or their music. The good news is, many of the elements that made their last pair of albums so interesting and thrilling are on full display. The album comes out swinging with the lethal one-two punch of singles Now We Die and Killers & Kings ; the former a visceral, orchestral feast of varying texture and the latter a blunt force dose of power and velocity, they combine to get the album off to a hell of a start. There are other stand-out moments wherein the band stray pretty far from their core sound. Ghosts Will H...

Considering how beautifully Dave Grohl's Sound City project worked, the prospect of Sonic Highways was good reason to be excited for the eighth Foo Fighters record. Rather than telling the story of one studio and its magical mixing board, the Foos embarked on a journey that would take them to some of America's most notable musical meccas, all the while talking about the cities' rich histories with the people who were there. To cap it all off, the Foos and producer Butch Vig would record a song at each stop, drawing inspiration from the surroundings to create something truly special. That the execution of the idea can't live up to the idea itself doesn't doom Sonic Highways , but it does result in a modicum of disappointment. Perhaps it's because the band had frameworks for the songs in place beforehand, perhaps the constant time pressures of having to get the song to tape in time to catch the next flight prevented the songs from receiving a proper level of c...

Sometimes, a screenshot tells you all you need to know. Presenting my first ever review via text message, sent to my pal Ambrose who, despite the zinger he throws out, is the only person I know who liked Songs From Black Mountain: October 28, 2014 • Think Loud (Willie from 2022 here; I'm going through all my reviews to update links to streaming, and this is usually where you'd find a link to listen to this album. However, it's not available on streaming services, probably due to embarrassment?) 

As the co-leaders of a couple of the most accomplished and influential groups of the last twenty years (At The Drive-In and The Mars Volta), Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have built a reputation for lifting their fans to giddy heights of enthusiasm only to bring everything crashing down. At The Drive-In was dissolved at the height of their power, snuffed out before they had a chance to do the kind of history-shaping damage they were undoubtedly capable of. Later, as restless sonic vanguards The Mars Volta, they pulled the plug on a decade of exploration in a manner which seemed to signal the end of Omar and Cedric's partnership. In this respect, Antemasque coaxes a massive sigh of relief; even for all their individual talents, this is a duo that is at peak efficiency when they're creating together. Here, they seem to have struck an agreement on a singular vision as opposed to striking out in all directions, and its surprisingly focused attack marks the least a...

One has to wonder if Conrad Keely sleeps. As an avid writer in addition to his role as primary songwriter, frontman and artwork creator for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, the only thing more astounding than his creativity is his prolificness; IX is (rather obviously) Trail Of Dead's ninth album, but also the fourth in five years. In fact, while some artists receive criticism along the course of their careers for a perceived shortage of ideas, Trail Of Dead have been targeted more often than not for having too many. The band's lofty aspirations may have gotten the better of them a couple times along the way, but in recent years they've settled into a comfortable groove. However, ever averse to settling, they boiled their sound down to its furious essence on 2012's Lost Songs . That album scaled back the group's more cinematic impulses and placed heavy emphasis on high energy and concise attack, and IX starts out with the same focus. The percussive, p...

For over a decade, Matt Caughthran and company have been wrecking necks as hardcore stalwarts The Bronx. However, their affinity for mariachi music has been present long enough to warrant their mariachi band alter egos to be treated as a separate entity. Through their surprising 2009 debut and its formidable 2011 follow-up, the project's existence has faced dumbfounded criticism as a mere novelty act. The thing is (as their second record confirmed), Mariachi el Bronx aren't a novelty act; they display a genuine respect for the mariachi genre, honing their songwriting along the way and creating earnest, honest and fun records. The third doesn't waver from the mission, rarely straying from the script and giving us another faithful representation of the group as mariachi players. Just as their second mariachi album's sense of melody informed The Bronx's fourth hard rock album, that album's sharpened hooks find their way to this record. Lead single Wildfires i...